An E-mail from a Fellow Traveler

Here is an example of the many e-mails that I receive from others who are facing the challenges and successes of healthy eating. Please do share your story!

Dear Kristina,

It's interesting we both seem to be from the Weston Price, Jordan Rubin, Aajonus school of thought. My story essentially began several years ago. My son was very young and I was feeling a lot of stress trying to work in two professions (music, business), raise a child, and take care of household duties with a disabled spouse. I'm interested in jazz and the local jazz station had a segment with Gary Null. He talked about how not to be sick, without even a cold. After listening to him for a while and getting some books, I decided to start his regimen. He ate fish, but otherwise was a vegan. At first my health improved, but I pushed myself hard physically. I jogged and ran a lot. Eventually my body started to break down. I spent about three years on that regimen, taking many supplements. I was underweight and I ended up in the emergency room because I woke up in the middle of the night feeling as if I had a heart attack.

I continued my reading and studying and came across a book on Paleolithic diets (Cordain). It made sense to me and I wanted to try it out of desperation. I started to gain energy and within a few months I discovered the raw food version of the diet. Although I was feeling improved, I was eating a large amount of meat and I believe that I was hitting my limit. I had some nausea. My spouse was not in favor of this diet and she thought I had food poisoning. Actually, I'm not sure that I ever had problems with the raw food.

Reading more with the Weston Price organization, I started to reduce my protein and add more fat. I think the addition of butter has made a difference. However, it scares my spouse when I tell her that it's not uncommon for me to eat a stick of butter a day. I've been eating raw food for about 1.5 years, but only a couple months with the addition of butter. The butter has made the difference in gaining desired weight.

My diet is similar to yours. I try to eat at least some raw organ meat almost every day. It might be a small amount of liver. Organ meats seem to give me the most energy and the fat seems to balance it out. I'm not convinced that I need as much raw meat as I'm eating. I'm reading about cultures around the world who cook much of their food. However, I think some raw food is important. Since I'm not eating raw butter but pasteurized cultured butter (since raw is hard to get) I think I have a fairly good balance.

You seem to have a decent support network with your patients, yet you said you had a lonely experience. Was that before you started your current practice? Anyway, my support network for my diet is not very strong so I have been seeking out like-minded people. I found a woman in western Canada to correspond with. There is always room for more.

How do you see yourself in your healing process? Has your improvement been steady or was most of your improvement in a shorter period? Do you know many others on this type of diet?

Best of health,
A.L.